Environment | WPN World People News

Federal engineers are close to opening a massive spillway that would flood hundreds of thousands of acres in Louisiana Cajun country to try to protect heavily populated Baton Rouge and New Orleans from the bulging Mississippi River.

About 1,000 of the refugees are thought to have returned back across the Ubangi river of their own accord, according to the UNHCR

U.S. humanitarian budget especially crucial as disasters, droughts raise hunger risks globally Nutrition, small-holder farmers must be priorities in approaches to agriculture development

In the wake of recent significant loss of life and property suffered by several states due to last week’s horrific tornados and other storms, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius today offered those states several options to speed Medicaid eligibility for those who may desperately need health services but have no means to pay for it.

Nola Stewart and her daughter survey the damages to their home after a tornado destroyed the structure. When natural disasters, such as severe storms and tornadoes, strike, the first responders are local emergency and public works personnel, volunteers, humanitarian organizations, and numerous private interest groups who provide emergency assistance required to protect the public's health and safety and to meet immediate human needs.

ATLANTA – Seven additional counties have been designated for disaster assistance to households and businesses as part of Alabama's federal disaster declaration, according to officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The latest counties are Autauga, Calhoun, Elmore, Etowah, Marion, St. Clair, and Tallapoosa.

Two days before hundreds of deadly tornadoes swept through the South on April 27 and 28, meteorologists were telling people in that part of the country to get ready for powerful twisters.

About 2,000 protesters are demanding that Taiwan scrap plans to operate a newly built nuclear power plant and turn the facility into a museum to highlight the dangers of nuclear power.....

Twenty-five years later, Chernobyl remains a deserted city in northern Ukraine. Nearby, 350,000 people were evacuated, including 50,000 from Prypiat, a workers’ city a few kilometers away. To this day, it is a spooky ghost town, whose abandoned ferris wheel has become an iconic image of sudden disaster. “The Day the Ferris Wheel Stood Still” by Tania D’Avignon is among the images on exhibit at the Knafel Building’s Fischer Commons through Aug. 12.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and its federal partners are working closely with state and local officials in Alabama and the other states impacted by the deadly tornadoes and severe storms that struck the Southeast last night, and that continue to impact southern states today.